US Navy team that captured Osama bin Laden to join exercises against North Korea

The US Navy SEAL team behind the killing of Osama bin Laden is said to be turning its focus on North Korea.

SEAL Team Six will join military training drills alongside South Korean forces as well as other elite US units such as the Green Berets and Delta Force, according to the South Korean news agency, Yonhap.

The training will involve exercises to practice destroying the North's nuclear arsenal.

A South Korean official told the news agency: "A bigger number of, and more diverse, US special operation forces will take part in this year's Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises to practise missions to infiltrate into the North, remove the North's war command and demolition of its key military facilities."

There will be strike simulations carried out by F-35 fighter jets and the exercises will include an amphibious landing drill involving the US and South Korea in April.

However, the US Navy Commander, Gary Ross, said there would be no practice designed to take out the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, and that the operation was meant to "enhance the Republic of Korea-US alliance's ability to defend the RoK".

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have ramped up after the secretive state fired four ballistic missiles into the sea near Japan.